The Impending Doom of Trump’s Trade War We’re in a phony-war period of Trump’s trade conflict. Things appear fine on the surface, but look closely and plenty of signs of impending trouble are emerging. It’s still early enough that if Trump rolls back his tariffs on China and reaches deals with other U.S. trading partners, the damage will be limited. Stock-market investors seem convinced that Trump will come to his senses and make this happen, and it’s certainly in America’s best interest that he does so. But if the deals prove elusive and the tariff war escalates amid beggar-thy-neighbor tactics, economic reality will assert itself........ Container-ship arrivals in L.A. this week will be down 35 percent year over year. ........ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said this week that Trump’s exorbitant tariffs have created an effective “embargo” on Chinese goods. The steep decline in imports from China will translate into even less demand for trucking within the U.S. by the end of this month, which will almost certainly lead to layoffs in that industry. Depending on where a product is made, we’ll see empty shelves in some stores by the end of June, and that could lead to layoffs in retail as well. ......... And Trump has acknowledged this with his odd riffs on how American kids might have to make do with three expensive dolls rather than 30 cheap ones, or with five pencils rather than 250—which one Republican pollster has called a “Marie Antoinette” moment. ........ American exporters are already feeling the effect of other countries’ retaliatory tariffs. That’s especially true of U.S. farmers, who lost tens of billions of dollars in sales thanks to Trump’s trade war with China during his first term (and were made whole only thanks to a hefty bailout). Those farmers are already facing a renewed wave of canceled orders, to the point that the head of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, an export-trade group, told CNBC that farmers are in a “full-blown crisis” as their sales nosedive. This not only is leading to job cutbacks in agriculture but also means that container-ship departures, as well as arrivals, are falling at U.S. ports. That will put the jobs of dock workers, warehouse workers, and truckers in further jeopardy. ....... a cascading effect: weaker demand leading to lower sales, triggering more layoffs, leading to still lower demand, and so on. ....... No investor or business person should be all that surprised if Trump went back to his Liberation Day rates and continued to try to strong-arm China, which would almost certainly send the U.S. economy into a self-inflicted, utterly unnecessary recession. The markets are betting that the phony war will never become a real one.
Before he was elected pope, Leo XIV was critical of Trump, Vance on social media "JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn't ask us to rank our love for others."....... In 2015, Prevost posted a link to a Washington Post opinion piece titled "Cardinal Dolan: Why Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric is so problematic." ........ Francis clashed repeatedly with Trump and Vance, particularly over the administration's immigration policies. He was critical of their plans to deport millions of migrants from the U.S., as well as widespread cuts to foreign aid and domestic welfare programs. ........ Vance was one of the last officials to see Francis before his death. A day before passing away at age 88, the pope hosted the U.S. vice president at the Vatican. ........ Trump in a post on Truth Social had earlier celebrated the first-ever election of an American as pontiff.
Manchin slams West Virginia move to ban ranked-choice voting “Ranked choice voting gives voters more say and rewards candidates who appeal to a majority, not just a base,” he said. “Banning it while trying to close primaries sends one clear message: some politicians don’t want to compete, they just want control.”
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